Two days afterwards Mrs. Gurrage and Miss Hoad (the red-haired girl is the niece) came to call.
Grandmamma was seated as usual in the old Louis XV. bergère, which is one of our household gods. It does not go with the other furniture in the room, which is a "drawing-room suite" of black and gold, upholstered with magenta, but we have covered that up as well as we can with pieces of old brocade from grandmamma's stored treasures.
After the first greetings were over and Mrs. Gurrage had seated herself in the other arm-chair, her knees pointing north and south, she began about the rheumatism stuff for the "j'ints."
"I can see by yer hands ye're a great sufferer," she said.
"Alas! madam, one of the penalties of old age," grandmamma replied, in her fine, thin voice.
Then Mrs. Gurrage explained just how the mixture was to be rubbed in, and all about it. During this I had been trying to talk to Miss Hoad, but she was so ill at ease and so taken up with looking round the room that we soon lapsed into silence. Presently I heard Mrs. Gurrage say—she also had been busy examining the room:
"Well, you have been good tenants, coverin' up the suite, but you've no call to do it. You wouldn't be likely to soil it much, and I always say when you let a house furnished, you can't expect it to continue without wear and tear; so don't, please, bother to cover it with those old things. Lor' bless me, it takes me back to see it! It was my first suite after I married Mr. Gurrage, and we had a pretty place on Balham Hill. We put it here because Augustus did not want anything the least shabby up at The Hall, and I take it kind of you to have cared for it so."
Grandmamma's face never changed; not the least twinkle came into her eye—she is wonderful. I could hardly keep from gurgling with laughter and was obliged to make quite an irritating rattle with the teaspoons. Grandmamma frowned at that.
By the end of the visit we had been invited to view all the glories of The Hall. (The place is called Ledstone Park; The Hall, apparently, is Mrs. Gurrage's pet name for the house itself.) We would not find anything old or shabby there, she assured us.
When they had gone grandmamma said to me, in a voice that always causes my knees to shake, "Why did you not make a révérence to Mrs. Gurrage, may I ask?"